Where the stars of Cheers are now... as fans give a toast to George Wendt after his death at 76

Daily Mail​

21-05-2025

Cheers fans bid farewell to one of the iconic sitcom's stars, George Wendt, on Tuesday.
The actor, who died at 76, was a key cast member of the show, which boosted many of its stars to even bigger successes down the road.
The show helped solidify Ted Danson's stardom while making Woody Harrelson and Kirstie Alley into major forces in Hollywood and launching Kelsey Grammer's successful spinoff, Frasier.
Wendt played the friendly barfly Norm Peterson on Cheers, which first aired 42 years ago on September 30, 1982, and went on to broadcast 275 episodes across 11 seasons.
George impressively appeared in every episode until the show went off air in May 1993.
As the stars and adoring fans of Cheers give a toast for Wendt, DailyMail.com takes a look at where the rest of the cast are over four decades since the hit series made its debut.
The actor, who died at 76, played the friendly barfly Norm Peterson on the series, which boosted many of its stars to even bigger successes down the road; seen in 2012 in NYC
George Wendt
Hollywood-based George kept an extremely low profile in recent years and had little to no social media presence.
DailyMail.com last spotted him in November 2024, when he was seen being pushed in a wheelchair out of a dialysis clinic in Los Angeles, though he was seen periodically in public earlier int he decade.
Wendt looked particularly frail at the time, when he was seen being picked up by his wife of 45 years, Bernadette Birkett.
He had been married to Birkett — who played the voice of the mysterious Vera on Cheers — since 1978, and they shared one daughter and two sons while living in Los Angeles.
Although Wendt reportedly was hospitalized in 2012 after suffering chest pains, he was private about any health issues he may have been dealing with in his final years.
Hailing from Chicago, prior to acting Wendt was expelled from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana over poor grades before moving into show business, where his first job was sweeping a theater floor.
Guest roles in Taxi and M*A*S*H were followed by his big break on Cheers, and two years after it finished he launched a self-titled sitcom on CBS, but it was canceled after just eight episodes.
Hailing from Chicago, prior to acting Wendt was expelled from the University of Notre Dame over poor grades before moving into show business, where his first job was sweeping a theater floor. Guest roles in Taxi and M*A*S*H (pictured) were followed by his big break on Cheers
Most Cheers fans last saw Wendt when he reunited with several of his Cheers costars at the Emmy Awards in January 2024 (pictured). He was joined by Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Perlman, and John Ratzenberger in a recreation of the series' iconic bar
Other than his success in the hit sitcom, the popular entertainer has appeared in shows such as Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Columbo and Wings.
He also had a recurring sketch on SNL's Bill Swerski's Superfans, which was dedicated to sports fans from Chicago.
In 2021, Wendt suffered a family tragedy, when his cousin — who was confusingly named George F. Wendt — died at 72 after drowning in Lake Michigan while competing in a swimming race.
Wendt's last credited acting role in his lifetime was the made-for-TV movie Love's Second Act, which starred Full House's Jodie Sweetin, and he's also set to appear in the completed but unreleased TV movie Compound Fractures.
But Cheers fans' last interaction with him was a positive one, as he reunited with several of his Cheers costars at the Emmy Awards in January 2024.
Wendt was joined by Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Perlman, and John Ratzenberger in a recreation of the series' iconic bar.
Woody Harrelson, who was acting in a play at the time, and Shelley long didn't attend the reunion.
Ted Danson
Ted Danson, 77, starred as Sam Malone on the hit show and was one of only three characters to appear in all 275 episodes.
His character Sam was a former baseball player for the Boston Red Sox whose battle with alcoholism led him to quit his sports career and open a bar, where he was adored by his patrons and was skilled at seducing beautiful women.
Danson, on the other hand, is more of a one-woman man, having been married to actress Mary Steenburgen since 1995 after meeting her on the set of Pontiac Moon in 1993.
'I'm in love. We're in love. That handles a lot. We make each other laugh. I admire her. If I could be a woman, I'd want to be her,' Danson once gushed over his wife, with whom he celebrated 25 years of marriage in 2020.
Before meeting Steenburgen, he had been married twice and famously dated Whoopi Goldberg.
After Cheers, he's remained a fixture on television and has appeared in lead roles in a number of hits including Becker, Fargo, CSI, The Good Place and as a regular guest on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
He has also filmed multiple advertisements for phone company Consumer Cellular.
Danson played a fictional mayor of Los Angeles in the two-season comedy Mr. Mayor, and he currently leads the Netflix series A Man On The Inside, in which he plays a retiree who takes up a new career as a private investigator.
The comedy series began filming its second season this month, and it became a family affair of sorts after Danson's real-life wife Mary joined the cast for the second season.
Danson was nominated for 11 consecutive Emmy Awards for his role as Sam, finally winning Best Actor in a Comedy in 1990 and then again in 1993. He has two children with second wife Cassandra Coates, who he divorced in 1993.
He is a pescatarian and is a dedicated advocate of ocean conservation.
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley came onto the Cheers scene to replace Shelley Long in the start of season six, playing tough business woman Rebecca Howe.
She earned an Emmy Award and Golden Globe for her role in 1991.
Alley had a successful career before and after Cheers, making her film debut in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and starring alongside John Travolta and the voice of Bruce Willis in the Look Who's Talking series.
And she continued working in show business until the final year of her life, with a surprise appearance as Baby Mammoth on The Masked Singer in April 2022, ahead of her death at 72 on December 5 of that year.
The actress had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in May of that year, and despite undergoing chemotherapy treatments, she succumbed to the disease at a cancer hospital in Tampa, Florida.
Allie had been married twice and has two children. She was also a member of and vocal supporter of the Church of Scientology.
In her final years she had come under fire for her political views after making multiple appearances on Fox News to discuss her support for President Donald Trump.
Despite previously labeling herself a moderate liberal, she appeared on Tucker Carlson's show claiming CNN was 'terrorizing viewers' with its constant coronavirus coverage.
She also blasted the Academy Awards after organizers announced that they would update diversity rules in order for films to be eligible for best picture nominations.
'[C]an you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his ... paintings,' Alley wrote on Twitter. 'You people have lost your minds. Control artists, control individual thought .. OSCAR ORWELL.'
Shelley Long
Shelley Long, 75, found fame playing intellectual barmaid Diane Chambers in the 1980s sitcom but has also appeared in a string of other hit shows and movies including The Money Pit, Troop Beverly Hills, Hello Again and The Brady Bunch Movie.
Her character's on-again, off-again romance with former Red Sox relief pitcher Sam Malone (played by fellow Emmy winner Ted Danson) kept the show on the top of the ratings chart year after year.
Shelley quit at the end of Season 5 in 1986, believing her character had run its course.
But she reprised her Cheers role to appear as a guest character on Frasier opposite on-screen love interest Kelsey Grammer.
In his 1995 biography 'So Far' Kelsey claimed Shelley was unpopular with producers on Cheers. He claimed producers grew tired of her constant complaints about his own character and plotlines.
Shelley, who has been divorced twice and is a mother of one, has lived in a $1.3 million condo in the upscale West Los Angeles enclave of Pacific Palisades, California, since divorcing her second husband Bruce Tyson in 2004.
But according to locals, she is rarely seen out and about.
Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer, 70, entered Cheers as psychiatrist Frasier Crane in season three.
What began as simply a guest spot, Grammer's Frasier became a fixture at the bar and a beloved series regular.
His career took off with Cheers and he went on to portray the Frasier character for 20 more years with the hugely successful spin off Frasier, for which he won four Emmy Awards.
The show ran for 11 seasons between 1993 and 2004, making it one of the most successful TV spin-offs of all time.
Frasier won 37 Primetime Emmy Awards, which was then a record for the most Emmys for a scripted series, including five straight wins for Outstanding Comedy Series.
After Frasier ended in 2004, Grammer began appearing in more films, and scored roles in blockbusters including X Men: The Last Stand and Transformers: Age of Extinction and was known for his voice work, notably as the evil Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons.
Grammer has been married four times and has seven children, including three with current wife Kayte Walsh, a British flight attendant 25 years his junior.
He reprised his iconic role as Frasier Crane with a 2023 revival of Fraiser for Paramount+, but critics gave the show mixed reviews and fans derided it for looking cheap and failing to live up to the magic of the original.
The series was canceled by Paramount+ after airing its second season in 2024, though CBS said at the time that it was trying to shop the show around to other networks and streaming services.
Grammer will return to the big screen when he reprises his long-dormant X-Men role as Beast/Dr. Hank McCoy in the upcoming Marvel film Avengers: Doomsday, which is set to be released in 2026.
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson, 63, arrived at the bar in season four as the new bartender Woody Boyd. He went on to win an Emmy Award for his role and five nominations.
Cheers was the actor's first ever role, yet he is arguably the most successful of the cast, appearing in numerous hit films and television shows, including the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
He also had a major role in the Hunger Games franchise and costarred with Matthew McConaughey in HBO's first season of True Detective, which earned him an Emmy nomination.
He has been nominated for an Oscar three times for The People vs Larry Flynt, The Messenger and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and he also played one of the lead roles in Oliver Stones' controversial crime satire Natural Born Killers.
Harrelson is a vegan and well known for environmentalism and charity work.
He is also an athlete, playing in two Unicef Soccer Aid matches in the UK in 2010 and 2012 for the Rest of the World team. In 2020, Harrelson was seen practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu while filming and is a white belt.
He is a father to three daughters with his wife Laura Louie, who he has been with since 1987.
Rhea Perlman
Rhea Perlman, 77, appeared in every episode of the show as impatient waitress Carla Tortelli, who was well-known for her violent temper and disdain of almost everyone in the bar aside from Sam.
Her banter with character Diane was always a comic highlight, as was her ever expanding brood of children.
Like the majority of her cast mates, Cheers catapulted her into stardom, although she had a small role on the popular comedy Taxi prior.
After the show she reprised her role as Carla on a few occasions, including on The Simpsons and Cheers spinoff Frasier, and made sporadic appearances in films, including 1996's Matilda as the heartless mother, alongside real-life husband Danny DeVito.
She's guest starred in hit comedies including The Mindy Project, Mom and Hot in Cleveland.
Her recent roles have included guest spots on the Natasha Lyonne–starring Poker Face and on seth Rogen's Apple TV+ comedy The Studio.
Her most recent film role was a buzzy part in Greta Gerwig's 2023 mega-hit Barbie.
Perlman and DeVito have been married since 1982 and have three children, with eldest daughter Lucy following her parents into acting.
The couple had previously separated in late 2012, but reconciled by early 2013.
However, the separated again in March 2017 and have been living separately ever since.
However, Perlman later clarified that the two remained friends even after their separation, and she has said they have no plans to get divorced.
John Ratzenberger
John Ratzenberger, 79, played Cliff Clavin in the series. Cliff was a postal worker who lived with his mother and found it hard to talk to women. He saw Ted Danson's Sam as a hero.
His character knew useless and questionable facts and happily spoke to anyone who came within a few yards of them.
Despite his numerous annoying tendencies, Cliff had a heart of gold, and, although they didn't always show it, the Cheers gang loved him to bits.
Born in Connecticut, Ratzenberger made his way into performing while working as a house framer in London.
He has been married three times and has a son and daughter.
Ratzenberger had small roles in blockbusters Superman, Superman II and The Empire Strikes Back.
His voice has made him the most famous as Ratzenberger has appeared in several Pixar films, notably as Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story series. He has also had voice roles in Cars, A Bug's Life and the Inside Out series.
Ratzenberger, who is a Republican and a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, had a guest role on Poker Face in 2023.
Nicholas Colasanto
World War Two veteran Nicholas Colasanto was the lovable bartender known as Coach.
He came into the role after directing episodes of shows including Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, Columbo and the original Hawaii Five-O.
He developed heart disease in the mid-1970s and was set to retire before being offered the role in Cheers.
During season three of the show, he was hospitalized. After being released in February 1985, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died at home in Los Angeles at the age of 61.
He was written out of the show as having died off-screen and a picture from his dressing room was placed on the set as a tribute.